Another License plate capture project

[hamsoplo]

After seeing all you guys and your plate capture/recognition setups I thought i'd give it a go. I got a Huisun v2 but it's too tall to fit on the trim board under the soffit. So I took an old 4mp hikvision turret and did the 25mm lens hack and placed it in the window to see how close it is to the ipvm calculator, seems way off but kinda worked marginally so I mounted it up. Problem is the turret design doesn't give you enough vertical adjustment to shoot far out, maybe I'll get an angle mount or try to shim it first. This is what i'm getting now, the aliexpress zoomable illuminater is on the way. Calculator says about 95ft and 145 pixle per foot. When measured with ms paint I think i'm about 127ppf but the sharp angle makes it worse. Marginal results so far, keep tweeking or scrap it and try something with more zoom. Running 1/750 shutter in these pics.

 

[pozzello]

you've got almost enough resolution, but that angle is pretty extreme for Automated LPR, looks to be 50-55 degrees?
you may have better luck with more zoom and capturing further out on the road to minimize that angle...

i didn't realize one could swap lenses in the turrets. i've only done it in the bullets.

you must be mounting it on a horizontal surface to not get the horiziontal view you want...

"Calculator says about 95ft and 145 pixle per foot. When measured with ms paint I think i'm about 127ppf"
that seems about right for a 4MP cam. the difference (127/145) is due to your angle.

 

[hamsoplo]

Sorry, I'm just trying to capture plates to view manually, not automatically read them. In testing I had it about 40deg but I can't go that much because it's mounted horizontally under the soffit, now maybe 45-50?. Didn't anticipate that problem with the turret design. Yes, the lens swapped out on the turret, same problems, board won't screw down but tension from the wires keeps it there.

 

[pozzello]

not sure I'm groking your angle issue. maybe a picture or diagram would clarify if needed.

i think you'll want more zoom to look further down the road and minimize your angle on the plates.
maybe try the Huisun v2 mini-ptz mounted upside-down? may affect it's weatherproofing, but
would probably be OK under a soffit... (disclaimer: haven't tried it myself - just an idea...)

 

[nayr]

you definitely need more zoom and less angle, I had to go to some extreme measures to get good plate reads.. had to install camera low to get under trees and use 60mm of zoom to get em coming around a corner with little angle at all.. since camera was low I had to intersect with the end of a neighbors driveway so nobody would park there.

more than likely you only have one or two possible locations if your lucky, go figure those out.. measure the distances on google maps and get an appropriate level of zoom.. it sounds like you shoulda used a bullet and not a turret.

 

[pozzello]

or mount the turret on a vertical surface instead of horizontally under the soffit.

 

[nayr]

its a little bit more readable with prewarp, but still not great..

 

[hamsoplo]

Here's what the plan was initially before I ran into the camera elevation problem. Do you think It'd be worth going to a bullet with the hack 25mm lens or i'd need even more zoom? If I need more zoom my options are limited. Any suggestions?

Since this is a rear plate only state I need two cameras. Going the other direction, it's more challenging. I'm limited to down the driveway or aiming way down the street due to trees and ornamental grass that grows very high in the summer. This looks very similar to nayr's street layout. I could probably copy nayr's setup exactly with a 60mm on a 4mp box cam near ground level shooting about 170-190ft where the road curves.

The plants around the utility boxes grow very tall in the summer so going over that is a no go unless I go above the first story roofline.

 

[japjoe7]

Excuse my ignorance but why are people reading plates, is it for security purposes if something happens?

 

[nayr]

dont have any scales, whats the distance of that first one? I have a feeling that your distances are too much for 25mm..

most of us are capturing plates because we can, they prove to be quite useful for a variety of reasons.

 

[hamsoplo]

Sorry I haven't figured out how to do scale yet. First one is 90ft, aimed where I wanted it would be 105ft. I think you're right, too far for the 25mm.

I'm trying this mainly for security and partially as a hobby/challenge. We've had too many break ins and wheels stolen this last year. Two cars on my street alone. If you don't have a face to identify the people or a license plate the police aren't interested. The detective basically said, no face, no plate, no care. Both wheel thefts I saw the cars but not the people.

 

[pozzello]

Are you sure that's the right house? they all look the same...

note at the bottom of pic indicates ~150ft to the capture location at the bend.

that's a good spot cuz you'd get 'em straight on, but you'll need more like 50-60mm zoom to read 'em out there.
you say you have a huisun 10x (5-50mm)? try that out there...
you'll need to stay low to the ground to keep under the trees, just like Nayr's setup...

 

[pozzello]

Hey, do you have power out by those utility fixtures?
maybe you could put the a cam or two out there, much closer to the street...

 

[nayr]

I agree, if anything put that Huisun up on some scrap lumber and go play with it to see what kinda capabilities you can achieve with 2MP & 50mm optics.. you'll see that full zoom works alot better and you'll be looking for a pair of cameras with ~50mm or better optics.. if your not wanting to do automatic recognition, then the Huisun is the best bang for the buck.. has adequate IR, adequate zoom for those distances

 

[hamsoplo]

Got the Huisun temporarily mounted where the modded turret was. Just enough zoom at full 10x shooting over the end of the neighbors driveway to get clear shots without parked cars. Works great but is ugly in that location. Need to figure out how to keep it in night mode, the focus changes so I either get night plates or day plates. I get 90% of the plates, the others are just too old/rusty/don't reflect or are covered with some clear plastic cover.

Tried it in the other location pointing west but the plates looked too small.

 

[pozzello]

that looks pretty good! are you at ~80 feet?

I set my focus to manual. dial in preset 1 for daytime plate capture. preset 2 for night-time capture (same view, different focus.)
I use BI to switch between the presets just after sundown and sunset. Without BI, I think this can be done with some scripting
(as the cam responds to OXML for PTZ function control) but haven't done that myself...

might force night mode (if you wanna go that way) by placing a piece of black electrical tape over the light-sensor under the front cover:

 

[Abbell]

So reading through this project... Nayr and his awesome birdhouse is inspiring me. I have an intersection about 40-50 ft away from the corner of my house where a decorative birdhouse would not look suspect. What is you opinions of using this board camera?

 

[nayr]

looks like its h264 only, which wont work with the gpl OpenALPR

 

[hamsoplo]

There is an elevation change, I laser ranged it to 90ft to about the center of the frame, middle of the road. I haven't taped it yet since this is a temporary setup with only 2 screws holding it on half way hanging off the facia board. I don't know how to do scripts and don't have a computer running all the time either. Hopefully LTS releases their 94mm variable zoom bullet in their catalog soon, then I'll grab 2 of them and be all set.

 

[hamsoplo]

Update: Revision 3
I really need something mounted under the soffit so I removed the 25mm lens and put it into a 2042 bullet paired with the popular aliexpress 3 led cannon. Actually works ok but more zoom would be better. I also notice that the lens camera combo has some reflection/glare problems where you can see another set of lights on the screen. Next revision will be the Hikvision DS-2CD4A24FWD-IZ 4.7-94mm or this dahua https://www.aliexpress.com/item/DAHUA-2MP-12X-IR-Bullet-Camera-with-POE-Outdoor-1080P-Network-Camera-with-100m-IR-Distance/32242981781.html

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